Sea Island Company - Cotton - 1860's dated Uncut Pair of Checks - Great History - South Carolina, Georgia, & Florida

Uncut Pair of Unissued Checks. Rare!!! Sea Island cotton, a historically significant market class, was actively cultivated from 1790 to 1920 on islands off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It became highly valued in European markets due to its long, fine fibers, facing little competition until the U.S. Civil War disrupted trade. The origins of Sea Island cotton are debated, but its development required creating cultivars suited to the coastal islands' climate and producing a distinct product from other types of cotton.

One of the major challenges in cultivating Sea Island cotton was adapting long-fiber cotton to the region's growing conditions. Although the cotton introduced to the Sea Islands came from the West Indies, where most varieties were short-fiber and needed a long growing season, it required overcoming environmental barriers such as frost, which killed plants before they could produce seeds. This made hybridization or selection methods difficult, though eventually, unique long-fiber cotton strains were developed, helping to establish Sea Island cotton as a premium market category.

Its fine, silky texture and long fibers made it ideal for luxury textiles, but the combination of labor-intensive cultivation, competition from other cotton varieties, and changing market conditions led to the decline of Sea Island cotton after its peak in the early 20th century.

One plausible explanation for the development of Sea Island cotton is that the distinctive traits emerged accidentally in a region with a long growing season and were later introduced to the Sea Islands. Supporting this theory, S. G. Stephens conducted experiments in the 1960s and 1970s where he hybridized Gossypium barbadense, known for its short, coarse fibers and long growing season, with a wild form of Gossypium hirsutum, which also had short fibers and a long growing season, but with fine fibers. Stephens expected the resulting plant to produce fine fibers, but he was surprised to discover that it also exhibited long fibers and a shorter growing season. He showed that this hybrid could be easily back-hybridized (using introgression) to form a cotton variety that retained the desirable characteristics—long, fine fibers and a short growing season—yet was almost entirely G. barbadense. He suggested that such an event could have occurred by chance in the 18th century, resulting in today's long, fine-fiber G. barbadense cotton.

However, Stephens' hypothesis does not fully explain the specific traits of Sea Island cotton, since this accidental hybridization could not have taken place in the Sea Islands, where the climate and growing conditions were different. Historical weather records provide another possible explanation for the development of Sea Island cotton. In the winter of 1785-1786, Georgia planters attempting to introduce G. barbadense faced difficulty because the plants would typically die from frost before producing seeds or fiber. However, an unusually mild winter allowed a few plants to survive and produce seed. The next generation of these plants was able to complete its growing cycle before winter, resulting in cotton that was better adapted to the Sea Islands. This adaptation process likely contributed to the distinctive long-fiber variety that became Sea Island cotton, known for its premium quality.

Sea Island cotton became renowned for its exceptional quality, with Kinsey Burden credited for developing particularly high-quality strains in the early 1800s through seed selection on Burden’s Island and Johns Island in South Carolina. By the turn of the century, the Sea Island region had specialized in this premium variety, parting ways from the broader southeastern United States, which focused on "upland" cotton. By 1803, the Charleston market recognized distinct classes of cotton, including Sea Island, South Carolina upland, West Indian, and Mississippi varieties.

Sea Island cotton was cultivated primarily along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, and it commanded the highest market prices due to its long staple length (1.5 to 2.5 inches) and silky texture. This made it ideal for the finest cotton counts and often for blending with silk. However, attempts to grow it in the uplands of Georgia resulted in inferior quality and prohibitively high processing costs. The invention of the cotton gin at the end of the 18th century revolutionized cotton production, particularly for short-staple upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), which could be grown in the interior southern states. Upland cotton soon became the dominant cotton variety in the Deep South, underpinning the region’s economic prosperity in the antebellum era. By the early 21st century, upland cotton accounts for about 95% of U.S. cotton production.

Francis Levett, an Englishman, was among the earliest planters of Sea Island cotton in North America, though other early planters came from Barbados. When Levett left his Georgia plantation during the American Revolution, he attempted to introduce cotton production in the Bahamas but failed, as sugar cane remained the primary commodity crop there.

Sea Island cotton growers could either purchase seed or use saved seeds from the previous harvest. Some planters developed reputations for superior seed selection, resulting in named cultivars like “Seabrook” (from William Seabrook) and “Bleak Hall” (from John Townsend's plantation). By the early 20th century, top seed selectors stopped selling their seeds, which led to a general decline in Sea Island cotton quality as planters struggled to maintain their crops without access to the best seeds.

The disruptions of the U.S. Civil War dealt a severe blow to Sea Island cotton production, and it never fully recovered. In the early 20th century, the boll weevil, a pest that devastated cotton crops across the U.S., caused significant damage to Sea Island cotton. The wet conditions on the Sea Islands further favored the boll weevil, and the susceptibility of Sea Island cotton cultivars led to its decline. By 1920, Sea Island cotton production on a commercial scale had ended.

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